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Sunday, September 20, 2015

It's Monday...What Are You Reading? (9/21)

It's been a few weeks since I've done one of these posts...heck, it has been a few weeks since I've done anything of note on this blog. The reviews have stopped and these Monday update posts have been inconsistent at best. The only thing I have been able to stick to are the Saturday Snapshots posts.

I know that I don't owe anyone an explanation for this, but I feel like I should give you all a bit of an update. I think of blogging as a relationship with my readers and I've been letting my side of that relationship down.

Life has been crazy--which is neither a surprise nor unexpected. Both of my kids are finally both in school (my son started back at preschool this past week). In addition to school, my son has speech and occupational therapy appointments each week, my daughter has ballet lessons, and--starting this coming week--both kids will be in swimming lessons twice a week. Yikes! I do have a few hours in the day, but I also need to clean my house and do laundry at some point.

But, let's face it. It is always crazy around here. There are a couple of other factors involved. The first is that I've start another, um, let's call it a project. I'm not quite ready to talk about it here on the blog and, when I am ready, I'm not sure how much I will share. The good news, though, is that it is sort of "complimentary" to this little blog--so while it might cut into some of my blogging time, it may also enhance it.

The other thing was the dreaded reading slump. I think everyone has hit a few of these and I certainly have gone through many in the past, but this one was a doozy. I just could not bear to pick up a book. I picked up and put down so many books in the past month that I lost count. I think I've finally emerged from the slump (thank you, Jennifer Weiner and Paula Hawkins), but I think this slump lasted about 6 weeks, which is 3-4 times longer than any other slump I've gone through.

I think this slump was caused by my very, very bad habit of over-committing my reading. Between books for my book clubs and books I've agreed to review, I have no time to just pick up something fun. There is no one to blame but myself on this one, but I am actively working on breaking this habit! I've let one of my book clubs know that I'll probably only be an occasional visitor and I've given myself permission to not read every single book for my other one. I'll also be limiting my solicited reviews going forward.

So, in light of all this, I'm going to modify my blogging schedule a bit. I'm still going to do the Saturday Snapshots posts and I'm going to try my darnedest to do one of these posts each Monday. Beyond that, however, I'll be only posting, at most, one review a week through November. I won't be posting reviews in December, but I had already planned that. Then, in 2016, I'll post up to 2 reviews a week (except from May 15-June 15 and then the month of December, which will be blog breaks again). I will also through in non-review posts when the urge hits.

I'm setting up this structure to take some of the blogging pressure off myself and to free up some time for my other project (I promise that, eventually, I'll let you all in on that one). It will also give me time to catch up on reading other blogs, something else that has slipped by the wayside lately.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, onto the business at hand!

Right now, I'm reading:

The "Main" Book:The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
I know that I'm probably the last person on the planet to read this book, but whatever. I've had it sitting on my Kindle for months and only now got the chance to pick it up (again, I blame it on my overly committed reading schedule!). I'm really enjoying it so far, but I think I'll have to wait until the end to see if it lives up to the hype.

The "A Few Pages Before Bed" Book:The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
This is for my October Book Club (and, obviously, I'll be reading this one!) It isn't especially dense, but I do want to really soak it up, so I'm only reading a dozen or so pages at a time.

With My Daughter:Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
My daughter received another Clementine book as a gift and I didn't realize until we were well into it that it comes later in the series! Still, my daughter loved Clementine, so I decided we'd start from the start of the series and alternate with the Ivy and Bean books.

Last Week, I finished reading:

Clementine, Friend of the Week by Sara Pennypacker
As I said, this comes later in the series. Still, it was fun to read because my daughter's teacher does friend of the week (although she calls it "Leader of the Week") in her class. My daughter's week isn't until January or February, but this book got her very excited about it!

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner (review to be posted 9/22)
This is it, folks. This is the book that broke the slump! You'll have to wait until my birthday to find out what I thought of it!